Realistic Self-Portrait

• Purpose:

• To use the correct facial proportions to draw yourself as accurately as you can;

• To draw the individual features, eyes, nose, mouth in a convincing 3D way;

• To use graphite and a stomp to show value changes and dimension.

Between the first portrait that I worked on and my realistic self-portrait, I made a lot of progress with incooporating contrast between things such as the skin and hair. In the first portrait, the proportions were off in nearly all of the features, such as the eyes, nostrils, and lips in particular. The rough lines that outline features rather than shading to show where, for example, the nose bridge connects to the cheek, make the pre-instructional drawing look more scrappy.  In my final piece, there are a variety of values and clear distinction between the lights and darks, giving it a more 3-dimensional look. 

I learned to use contrast and add value to avoid things like this.  Beginning the drawing with the grid to better determine feature location helped particularly with the jawline and overall face shape.  I was able to bring more emotion and depth in the final portrait as well with light in the irises of the eyes and movement of the mouth. I also learned how to separate chunks of hair and use longer lines to make hair look more realistic, smooth, and flowing. Lastly, I learned that tweaking even the smallest parts of the drawing could make the entire piece look different. I played around a lot with the values on my right cheek and nose, and was eventually able to make everything stand out.